Gallows in the context of "Execution (legal)"

Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, was publicly executed on 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House on Whitehall, London. The execution was the culmination of political and military conflicts between the royalists and the parliamentarians in England during the English Civil War, leading to Charles's capture and his trial. On 27 January 1649 the parliamentarian High Court of Justice had declared Charles guilty of attempting to "uphold in himself an unlimited and tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the rights and liberties of the people" and sentenced him to death by beheading.

Charles spent his last few days in St James's Palace, accompanied by his most loyal subjects and visited by his family. On 30 January he was taken to a large black scaffold constructed in front of the Banqueting House, where a large crowd had gathered. Charles stepped onto the scaffold and gave his last speech, declaring his innocence of the crimes of which parliament had accused him, and claiming himself a "martyr of the people". The crowd could not hear the speech, owing to the many parliamentarian guards blocking the scaffold, but Charles's companion, Bishop William Juxon, recorded it in shorthand. Charles gave a few last words to Juxon, claiming an "incorruptible crown" for himself in Heaven, and put his head on the block. He waited a few moments, and after giving a signal that he was ready, the anonymous executioner beheaded Charles with a single blow and held Charles's head up to the crowd silently, dropping it into the swarm of soldiers soon after.

A plurale tantum (Latin for 'plural only'; pl. pluralia tantum) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular form is rarely used.

In English, pluralia tantum are often words that denote objects that occur or function as pairs or sets, such as spectacles, trousers, pants, scissors, clothes, or genitals. Other examples are for collections that, like alms, cannot conceivably be singular. Other examples include suds, jeans, outskirts, odds, riches, goods, news, gallows (although later treated as singular), surroundings, thanks, and heroics.

Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. As a form of execution, it is commonly practiced at a structure called a gallows. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a common method of suicide.

Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. Occasionally, the gibbet (/ˈdʒɪbɪt/) was also used as a method of public execution, with the criminal being left to die of exposure, thirst and/or starvation. The practice of placing a criminal on display within a gibbet is also called "hanging in chains".

A trapdoor or hatch is a sliding or hinged door that is flush with the surface of a floor, ceiling, or roof. It is traditionally small in size. It was invented to facilitate the hoisting of grain up through mills, however, its list of uses has grown over time. The trapdoor has played a pivotal function in the operation of the gallows, cargo ships, trains, booby traps, and more recently theatre and films.

Tyburn was a manor (estate) in London, Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne, means 'boundary stream'.

The parish, and probably therefore also the manor, was bounded by Roman roads to the west (modern Edgware Road) and south (modern Oxford Street). The junction of these was the site of the famous Tyburn Gallows (known colloquially as the "Tyburn Tree"), now occupied by Marble Arch. For many centuries the name Tyburn was synonymous with capital punishment: it was the principal place for execution for London and Middlesex criminals and convicted traitors, including many religious martyrs. In the 18th century it was also known as "God's Tribunal". Hangings at Tyburn often included a sometimes raucous procession of the condemned from Newgate Gaol in the City – at the end of the 18th century, the hangings were moved to Newgate.